Assessing the livelihood of slum ewellers in Dhaka city

The present study was an attempt to determine the factors affecting the livelihood of the socioeconomic improvement of migrants and to analyze the causes of rural-urban migration in slum areas. Slum areas have no available formal education facilities and slum people were found to be engaged in rickshaw pulling, day labourer, petty business, small job services etc. Analysis showed that migration and taking in micro credit were beneficial for the slum dwellers. Receiving and utilizing micro credit income level, consumption, expenditure and socio-economic status of the slum dwellers improved to some extent. Due to participation of slum dwellers in NGOs, their economic, social and decision making improved substantially. Credit disbursement through NGOs with integrated approach could bring positive changes in the life of poor slum women as well as their community. Findings showed that Fifty six per cent people migrated to Dhaka city for economic reason. Factors of migration had a significant contribution of rural urban migration and also significant livelihood improvement has taken place due to micro credit. At the individual level, the women were benefited in terms of mobility and skill, self confidence, widening of interests, access to financial services, build own savings, competence in public affairs and status at home and in the community that lead a better awareness for enhancing women’s empowerment. However, there is a need for proper training for sustainable result in the long run.


Introduction
The importance of urban development concerns of worldwide recognition and acceptance, especially in the context of the developing world.World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other international lending and funding organizations are also giving a lot of emphasis to address the issue of urban poverty, which is more prevalent in the slums.Many people of urban areas are in search of jobs and continue to live in a very unhealthy environment without proper shelter, drinking water and sewerage facilities.Some of the slums are located near the waste dumping sites and many of them are near the railway lines.The poor economic condition is also due to the unavailability of job opportunities in the urban areas.Urban poverty in fact emerges as a complex phenomenon than rural poverty, with aspects of environmental degradation, inadequate planning and management of urban resources, unemployment, mismanaged investments in technology as well as insufficient mobilization of communities.Equally notable is the mental and psychosocial factors which divide between the poor and the not so poor, ridden with misconceptions and a lack of understanding of what comprises poverty or vulnerability.At the turn of the new millennium, Bangladesh's urban population is about 16 million which work out to about a third of the population.This figure is projected to grow at the rate of about 3 per cent per year in the next decade.By the year 2025, 50 per cent of the populations of Bangladesh are expected to be living in urban areas.Although urbanization is often associated with increasing national production and high per capita GDP, poverty remains a persistent feature of the urban life, both in terms of income and living conditions (Roy and Sarker, 2006).
Micro credit programs are currently being promoted as a key strategy for poverty alleviation.The savings and credit programs are very common in the rural areas of the developing world.At present the attention is also focused on the urban poor like slum dwellers for their development.Micro credit can bring immediate and tangible benefits to the poorest members of the society while also promoting social change and empowerment.The goal of micro credit is to improve the lives of the poor by helping them to help themselves.It is also expected that micro credit plays a significant role in the urban poverty alleviation and the improvement of the living conditions of the poor people living in urban areas.
Bangladesh is one of the most populated countries of the world.The total population of Bangladesh is 142 million with a growth rate 1.43 per cent (BER, 2007).In a survey carried out by the United Nations, Dhaka is identified as a mega city and it would be eighth populous city of the world.Dhaka is now experiencing a period of cramped population growth and migrants are mainly responsible for this high growth rate.In 2007 the population of Dhaka city is more than 10 million and a report expects it to swell 16 million by the year 2010 and 25 million by the year 2025 (Democracy Watch, 2002).This influx of people in capital city has forced many low-income groups to live in slums.About 60 per cent of the Assessing the livelihood of slum ewellers in Dhaka city populations in Dhaka city are migrants where more than 65 per cent of the people live in slum areas.The physical condition of slums is characterized by high density living, improper utilization of public goods, lack of basic amenities, unhygienic and polluted environment, poor literacy rate, unemployment, crime, social, moral and psychological degradation and poor health.Slums mainly provide informal labor market, characterized by low wage, insecurity and uncertainty of working hour.Almost all the newcomers to the city join the informal sectors.The main sectors are garment industry, rickshaw pulling, street vending, construction works and small business.They are living in such houses where ventilation, drinking water, electricity and sewerage facilities are absent and they create new problems like unemployment, underemployment, high incidence of crime, proliferation of shanty towns, sub-standard housing, transportation, pollution and service supply problems.Some government organizations and NGOs have been working for decades to improve the slum dwellers' standard of living, but as a whole the results are minimal.An attempt has been made to evaluate the factors influencing migration to urban areas and the role of NGOs credit on the socioeconomic development of slum dwellers.

Materials and Methods
Keeping the objectives in view the data were collected from slums through field survey.Out of many slums in Dhaka city, three slums named Agargaon Radio Office (North-east Side), Karail, and Khilgaon Bagicha slums were purposively selected to collect required data depending upon the size of the slums with a large population, the length of time of the NGO operation in the slums and largest number of NGO members.From these slums in total 90 slum dwellers who migrated from rural areas and involved in micro-credit were selected.Data were collected through personal interviews with the selected slum dwellers by field survey.The data were collected during the period from August to December, 2006.The collected data were analyzed using specially regression analysis and logit model to determine the potential variables affecting migration.

Socioeconomic Profile of the Slum Dwellers
The overall socioeconomic conditions of slum dwellers are not good at all.Socioeconomic characteristics such as age, education level, male-female ratio, family size, occupational status, annual income etc were considered.
Age of the slum dwellers was classified into three categories such as less than 15 years, 16-55 years, and above 55 years.The 16-55 years is considered as working group.The household members aged between 16-55 years constituted the highest 57 per cent which reveals that working age group dominated the slum dwellers.
Education is considered as an important factor of the socioeconomic characteristics of the household.In slum areas there are no available formal education facilities for slum dwellers.Maximum slum dwellers are out of education but some NGOs and organization try to bring them in informal education.Some respondents got educational facilities when he stayed in villages.Female were less educated than the male in the study area.More than 7 per cent of the male members had secondary level of education while female with secondary level of education constituted higher (7 per cent) than male members.Maximum population of slum areas like 58 per cent of male member and 54 per cent of female members were illiterate.
It is known that the average size of the family/household of the slum dwellers was 4.78 that were slightly lower than that of the national family size of 4.92 (BBS, 2004).It further shows that household of the slum dweller respondents consisted of 39 per cent of earning members and 61 per cent of dependent persons.The dependency ratio was found to be 2.59 indicating that there were about 3 dependent persons in the household per earning member.
Occupation of different earning members in households is one of the determining factors of household status.Occupational status of the household members is shown in Table 1.In case of main occupation most of the household heads were engaged in informal services like petty business (Footpath vendor, hawker etc.) day labor, rickshaw pulling, labor in construction buildings small job service etc, where 25 per cent had rickshaw pulling and 17 per cent had petty business while 83 per cent spouse served as a housewife in the respective family.A major portion of slum dwellers earning member has subsidiary occupation such as petty business, day labor, rickshaw pulling, tailoring, cooking food for sale for floating man, hawker, and garments worker and others.In subsidiary occupation others (Housewife, maid servant, cook, beggar, tailoring, unemployed etc) occupied the highest place for household head, spouse and the other members of the family.In ifficult partners and spouses, many w en from the slum dicated that their courage to c ision-making stemm from a sense nity support from other members.Because wome p, they developed friendship a sisterhood relation with each other and solicit help a difficult situatio was present in their lives.
The re rated wom s role in deci king was stro r both in household affairs a s.The women respondents of said that these days they could manage in d ing their interest in participating different household (food, clothing, education of children) and loan a (taking loan, using loan, and repayment of loan) with their husba intly.
s the husband led the conversation and women members pondents of NGO were fully able to nd in the process of decision making in taking loans and using them and 1% respondents said in the decision on household affairs they can think and share their thought which is elongs to the scheduled tribe are more free from social norms, and traditional ender ideology and are able to take their decisions of their own in most cases.In order to explain the likelihood of improvement in the overall Socioeconomic condition, the following factors were used to estimate a logistic regression function.The results are presented in table 10.The explanatory variables used in the regression were dichotomous where a score of 1 was assigned to the se and a score of 0 assigned to n positive respon took lace).p Among the ten independent variables, it was found that eight variables had significant influence on the dichotomous dependent variables.In case of logistic regression the convention is to interpret the odd ratios not the co-efficient.Odd ratios were computed (computer output provide the odd ratios directly) by taking the anti log of the co-efficien

Conclusion and Recommendation
Rural-urban migration is not only an integral part of economic development but also a major factor of cial change.The poor landless, flood affected, less educ so areas mainly for better job opportunities.Various non-governmental organizations are actively perform their credit related program in the slum areas for improving the livelihood also h areas of Bangladesh.
Micro credit do increased income and cash saving for the slum dwellers and even they are able to posses more assets for their house.After involvement of micro credit slum dwellers had increased economicsecurity and reduced dependency on money lenders.The slum dwellers were encouraged to join the uation rally, anti liquor campaign evac ticipate in different activities.
It should provide trained teacher and appropriate teaching aids suitable for the slum dwellers education program and the training programs on leadership, management of accounts, innovative businesses and ther skill development should be conducted on a regular basis.Open handicraft outlets, expo o countries and maintaining the quality of the products which is produced by slum dwellers.This will directly help the slum people to have an assured income for their self independence and empowerment.NGO can negotiate with the local banks to provide some loan, it will help the poor slum dwellers greatly for etter business and regu b beneficiaries of slums were socially empowered by all the indicators of empowerment.Though it seems women have gained self-confidence and self-esteem high prevalence of incidences of violence at least makes clearer that empowerment has not been fully achieved.Thus the findings of the study imply that olicy makers p dwellers in Dhaka city.

Table 1 . Livelihood status of the slum dwellers
Table 5 reveals that highest average annual income earned the small job services.

Table 2 . Annual average incomes of the slum dwellers
According to the World Bank definition poverty line was estimated at an rogram, per person per day income as the highest in dollar 0.62 for small job service households followed by 0.38, 0.38, 0.30 and 0.27 others households respectively.

Table 3 . Income poverty status of the slum dwellers in Dhaka city
Th increase in expenditure was the maximum (73.22 per cent) for ed or housing.A close relationship with consumption and inc f have spent more money for household affairs after involved in the micro credit program.

Economic and Social Status Index Table 5. Economic status index of ondents
This was made possible by the fact that they had become productive in their own right, articipate in such decision making.

Assessing the livelihood of slum ewellers in Dhaka city Specification and measurement of variable factors
Regression line Y=-898.032+1.092*X 2 +3.557*X 4 +2.775*X 6 +3.005* X 17 +2.085*X19 +1.008* X 24The R2=0.778 shows the usefulness of this model in analyzing the determinants that influences the migration process potentially, and hence, 78 per cent variation of rural-urban migration is explained by g of work, better livelihood, landlessness, loss of inc six factors; searchin ome sources, easy access to

Table 10 . Result of logistic regression on the socioeconomic wellbeing
Note: a) *Significant at 5% level b) **Significant at 1% level

Table 10
shows that Incase of income odd ratio was 1.002 suggesting that probability of increase income 1.002 times for slum dwellers after micro credit involvement.Incase of consumption the odd ratio was 5.963 meaning that probability of co appears to be 5.963 times for slum dwellers after micro credit involvement.